Fading Champion
by Rustic Ink
Summary: Stiles has been kidnapped by the Alpha pack and is used as a punching bag, a means of instilling self-control in the careless werewolves. It's been months, and no help has come. Hurting, in near constant pain, Stiles is threatening to fade away.


His breath comes in hitched gasps, and he can't seem to get enough air. The darkness presses against his eyes, so hard he can almost feel it as an actual weight. Cool through the thin fabric of his shirt, the metal bench he's pressed against offers only the most feeble protection, and Stiles knows it. He's already seen the Alphas knock aside his barricades like the building blocks of a child, and still, every time they do this, every time they play with him, he can't help but erect a shield, of desks, chairs, whatever is available. It's been a different room every time, and sometimes he's had to be pretty creative.

_Not that it matters._ He's trying to control his panting; can't. Tilting his head back against the bench, Stiles closes his eyes. They aren't doing him any good anyways. His ears almost ache from straining so hard, from attempting to catch the soft shuffle that announces another session of agony. _I can't do this, _Stiles thinks frantically, hands balled into tight fists under his arms. _Oh God, oh God, I can't - _

He doesn't think he'd recognize himself now. He knows he's lost at least fifteen pounds; his frame, slim before, is skeletal now. His clothes are filthy rags; they haven't given him anything else to wear since taking him from his home. But worst - and Stiles knows this with a humiliation that is physically sickening - he's _changed. _They've had him for less than two months, and he's become a skittish, pathetic excuse, a gaunt teen less and less prone to defiance. He's just so tired of being hurt. Of being flung around like an old, dirty rag doll. And that is only on the good days. On the bad days… Stiles can hardly bear those. Today is a bad day. A whimper escapes his throat at the thought.

The main Alpha - he doesn't know their names - told him he'd be put through hell. He remembers the conversation clearly, because it was the last time he's had one that was remotely human. The main Alpha said he wanted to test his pack, test their resolve and focus and self-control when they were changed. He said that if his pack could control themselves completely, even when changed, they would be invincible. And what better way to teach that, the blind man had asked, then to give them a toy, a little trifle they could do whatever they wanted with as long as they didn't infect or destroy it?

They have failed in that sense. Stiles is well and truly destroyed.

At first, snide comments were easy. After all, it's him. But each 'dog' remark was met with a fist, and every sarcastic statement repaid with hunger and thirst and pain. Mockery had slipped from his vocabulary, to be replaced with escape. But even that is impossible. Stiles is kept in a small room - a cell, really - when they aren't 'testing' themselves, and he's no werewolf to break through concrete or metal. Not like some p - it's best not to go there. And the only time he's managed to get away, even briefly, was in a moment like this, when one of the Alphas accidentally broke a hole through the wall and he scrambled out and hid. And what they did to him when he was found is something he doesn't think about, ever, because there's more ways to hurt someone with sharp objects than he would have ever believed.

So his vocabulary has sunk down to 'survive,' and even that isn't much of a pull on him. There are plenty of sharp objects in the room. Stiles thinks that if he harms himself, enough to be fatal, the Alphas won't do anything about it. They'll let him use that one method of escape. Derek would hate him for that. But Derek isn't coming. No one is.

A sound pulls his thoughts involuntarily to the present. It is the muffled noise of a door - previously locked - being opened. Stiles knows that the moon is full tonight. He knows that one of the twins is assigned to him. The werewolf will stalk him and, when it loses that amount of control, pin him and slash and rip and… He's crying. Not a loud sound, because even now he cannot give them that satisfaction. But the tears still drip down his face, and it's like being naked in a glass cage, where everyone can see each and every little fault you try to hide. He's so weak, and scared, and tired, and he's so _alone_ and -

"Stiles. _Stiles._" The rough whisper, the firm but gentle hand clamped on his shoulder. It must be a dream, because he's said goodbye to everyone, even - or perhaps most of all - to Derek. "Stiles, are you - are you ok? What - what the hell have they done to you?" Not a dream, then, but a nightmare, because he has never wanted to hear that kind of grief in Derek's voice. He has never imagined that Derek could ever sound like that.

And because he wants the nightmare to end, Stiles forces his cracked lips to move, and he breathes, "Why so sad, sourwolf?"

The choked laugh, something he has never expected to hear again, is uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time. Slowly, fearfully, Stiles lets himself believe that this really is happening. That he is being saved. That the pain and fear is at its end. Derek has come for him, and he's finally going home.


End file.
